BTW, I have to find a way to take satisfactory photos of my projects... Since I moved to the new house a few months ago, I have trouble finding a good light. Oh well.

So, the journaling written on the tag that I have inside the pocket says that until two months ago I hated cooking. I found it extremely stressful and I avoided as much as I could. I knew as long as I would avoid cooking it would be hard to find and stay at my "true weight", so a couple of months ago I decided to give it a go, just for fun. And I was hooked. Now I find it relaxing, I love experimenting and discovering new tastes and combinations... and if some of the food I cook goes to the rubbish, it's just a learning experience!

This is the first dish I was really proud of and thought it deserved its own layout ;)

So come on over at The Studio Challenges to see how the DT have interpreted the sketch and to play along with us!

Sunday, 12 October 2014

Have you ever scrapped with a really big photo? If not, now is the time to do it!

The new challenge at The Studio Challenges asks exactly that: to make a layout using a big photo, which means a photo larger than 4x6.

Having made relatively recently a large photo layout for the first time, I was a bit troubled... What should I do this time? So the first thing to decide was the photo. And I thought to myself "which is the first photo that comes to my mind that I really love but I have never scrapped?". And Lola's layout back when she was less than two months old and we were still looking for a home for her (although I think I knew from the beginning I wanted to keep her) came to my mind. And here is what I made:

Isn't she the cutest ever? I just sooo love this picture!

I used PL cards for the bottom half of the layout and printed the journaling on vellum paper. On the red tape I have the words of Kinks' song "Lola" that comes to my mind when I think of my cat... although the rest of the song obviously has nothing to do with cats and kittens, lol!

So come over at The Studio Challenges to see what the design team has come up with for the big photo layout and get inspired to make your own big photo layout! I think this is one of my favourite challenges ever!

Sunday, 28 September 2014

So the challenge is about scraplifting one of the layouts the design team members made for this challenge. All of us in the design team picked another member of the team to scraplift for this challenge, so you will be scraplifting our scraplifts!

It was a bit hard to chose as really there were so many layouts that I would like to scraplift. But at the end the very first thought won. Because as soon as I saw HeeSun Kim's layout for last month's tic-tac-toe
challenge, I had a "I wish I had thought of that" moment. Like HeeSun
Kim, I have plenty of washi tape that I really like but I barely use. I
loved the way she had used the washi tape and her super-cute and
beautiful layout:

Since the theme of the layout is my nephew's love for doodling with his
markers, I went for a rainbow layout and the result kind of reminds me
of his markers.

I painted the wooden stars with acrylic paint and added
glossy accent to make them pop more:

We would love to see which of our scraplifts you chose to lift! So come over at The Studio Challenges to see what the design team has made and pick the layout you want to scraplift...

Sunday, 14 September 2014

Regarding the theme of my layout... About two years ago and thanks to facebook, five best friends from school (Marilena, Anna, Tonia, Valia and myself) met up again after almost two decades of having lost contact (well, I had lost contact with three out of four!). When we met it was as if not a day has passed. It goes to show that true childhood friendships really hold over time. A year later, Pavlos (our mustache man!) joined the team of reunited school friends.

Two years later, we still have weekly contacts, certainly via facebook but usually meeting up. With this layout I just wanted to highlight how much I value, appreciate and love our little team and our "sessions".

And that is why I wanted to go with the gold colour, as I consider them "gold" friends.

For the sketch, I used embellishments for the circle. 77 sequins glued, then sewn with my sewing machine (I so enjoyed this time consuming process... my sewing machine not so much! lol!). I added wood veneers and used glitter gold stickers and thickers and paper for the title, subtitle and frame.

I hope you like it! Come over at The Studio Challenges to see how the DT has interpreted the sketch and to play along with us!

Sunday, 31 August 2014

Usually I have difficulty choosing a line because there is almost always a material that I don't use. This time I had difficulty choosing a line because I liked them all! Finally I went for the last vertical row: stars - paint splatters - at least 3 types of alphas. And here is what I came up with:

I didn't like the green colour of the card in the background and I didn't want to make a white-red-blue layout, so I focused on the red colour of my nephew's amazing hipster (sun?)glasses and the heart on his shirt.

Sunday, 17 August 2014

I have some great news today! After the short break I took from scrapping, I am very happy to announce that I am back as a member of the great The Studio Challenges DT team! It has been a great experience to be part of this super-talented team in the past and I am so happy to be back!

So, there is a new challenge on the blog today: to create a layout inspired by the following mood board created by Tessa:

As I still haven't been on summer holiday (well, by the time this post is being published, I will be enjoying my one week holiday ;) ), I was inspired by the sea. Especially the turquoise colour in the first picture reminded me of my favourite beach Elafonisi in Crete. And here is what I created:

I've been wanting to create a large photo layout for some time now, but didn't have the chance so far. I thought this was the perfect chance, what with the most amazing colour of the sea in Elafonisi. Although the photo is not mine (I wasn't into scrapbooking way back when I went to that beach), so I found it on google here.

Lately it seems like I'm addicted to glitter... couldn't resist this time either, so I "dressed" wood veneers with gold glitter.

Also I printed the photo in two different sizes and used part of the photo that I didn't use below the negative "cool" part of the bubble:

Hope you like it!

So come over at The Studio Challenges to get inspiration from the super-talented team and to play along with us. The winner of this month will receive a package of chipboards from this month's sponsor A2Z Scraplets!

Monday, 28 July 2014

I have a layout to show you that I actually finished last weekend but didn't have time to blog about it. It is about going back to the city where all the craft adventure started for me - Edinburgh.

Five years after I spent some time on that city where I discovered a book that made me fall in love with crochet and magazines that convinced that card making was a hobby I wanted to try, I went back to Edinburgh again. So I took some pictures of the bookshop where I bought the crochet book and the paper store where I bought my first paper craft supplies:

I added some small journaling on the photos which I printed with my very favourite Instax share and I decided to hide the rest of the journaling behind vellum paper and a vellum embellishment just to make it a bit more playful and balanced:

Monday, 7 July 2014

Two days in a row! Looks like I'm finally getting my mojo back! (Hope I don't jinx it!)

So... after the card I made yesterday morning, I just wanted to make another one - my birthday cards stock is non-existent as well after so long without making cards. So last night I was looking for some inspiration online. As soon as I so the summer lovin' challenge over at CAS-ual Fridays, the idea came instantly. I mean, the challenge is to make a card with lots of hearts in summer colours... how can one not be inspired by such a challenge?

Here is the result:

So yes, I finally dusted off my big shot! And I used the
super-delicious and happy "hello sunshine" paper pad from Lawn Fawn. I
even took out my sewing machine just to sew the three hearts together
and on purpose I left long tails which I used for extra effect behind
the hearts.